“How would you rate yourself, on a scale from one to ten, in technology XYZ?”

There is a paradox that presents itself as people learn about a new subject. Only when they get somewhere past the halfway point to mastery, however that might be measured, do they even begin to realize how very little they actually know. Until they reach that point, the unwise and immature will consistently overestimate their abilities. The wise should realize that “they don’t know what they don’t know” all along.

“Can you tell me some technical things you know nothing about, or some technical subjects you know but are weak in?”

Recently some co-workers were burned, and how, by a “SharePoint expert.” It was slowly revealed over time that the guy had no business calling himself an expert on any technology, including SharePoint. There has been a rash of “SharePoint experts” and “BizTalk experts” in the Microsoft space over the past few years, because of the demand – but with this particular guy, SharePoint was incidental. Over time, it was easy to see that this guy would have called himself an “expert” of any technology.